Does this Dr Oz Weight Loss stuff work?

There has been so much media attention and buzz given to every weight loss product that Dr Oz talks about.

Weight Loss Tea, Raspberry Ketones, Garcinia Cambogia, Alpha Lipoic Acid and the list goes on and on. Now the real question is, does any of this stuff actually work?

Well I don’t think it’s as good as some people say, and I also don’t think it’s as bad as the sceptics say. Most of the products that Dr Oz recommends are antioxidants that help balance blood sugar and curb the appetite. However if you are overeating and under training then it doesn’t really matter what you are taking, you aren’t going to get skinny anytime soon.

Using these so called weight loss products can definitely help compliment your weight loss efforts, however diet and exercise come first.

One of the credible sites I’ve found selling these products is: www.ozweightloss.com.au

There are many other sites out there selling fake products or just skimming credit cards, beware of these.

Burnt out, I’ve found my answer… Revive

Recently I have to admit I have been feeling burnt out from partying a little too hard at the same time trying to run my business and also keep my training consistent.

My diet has been pretty top notch apart from the beer and wine, however the food portion has been great. Primarily Paleo with not much else..

Pre- training I was taking No-Xplode but have found it doesn’t work anymore.

After chatting to a mate who trains like an animal and never seems to burn out.

I was recommended to try Revive

I’m usually pretty sceptical of most products, but so far I’ve had awesome results. My testosterone is back, which wasn’t even my main goal, but I feel naturally aggressive and keener than ever to train every day.

Ps. there is a free trial also.. Get Revived

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adrenal fatigue

3 weeks of fun in the USA

Week 1 = Arnold Classic

Week 2 = Dallas + SXSW in Austin

Week 3 = A few more days in SXSW the Las Vegas @ The Cosmo

 

So much learning and fun to be had..

 

Stay tuned for the stories

the new new thing

After discussing business in the gym yesterday my wealthy friend advised me to track down and read this book – The new new thing..

Here I am thinking I’ve already read most of the interesting business tales of the 21st century when I came across this gem..

After plunging head first into the book yesterday afternoon, I have now completed almost half of it, and it’s no small book…

In this captivating book Michael Lewis follows the life of this obsessive, hyperactive, never-satisfied overachiever by the name of Jim Clark.

Jim Clark at the ripe age of 38 was going through his second divorce, lecturing at Uni and not really doing much else with his life.. Then he decided to go deeper into his hole of nothing.. Then in a moment he somehow got this inspiration to do something great.. And by the list of Jim’s achievements, he’s done more than great..

Jim is basically responsible for putting Silicon Valley on the map and was the first person to float a company that was losing money.. Which turned him into a Billionaire..

Long story short.. READ this BOOK..

Awesome story and I’m not even half way through it:)

jim clarke

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Facebook and identity theft – (I fell for it)

What an interesting week it has been.. I don’t usually write about such personal things, but I thought this is worthy of a laugh and maybe a lesson can be learned from my experiences..

Yesterday was the culmination of a series of facebook private msgs that were sent from two separate fake identities..  Sure I’ve heard of victims of identity theft, however it’s the kind of thing you don’t expect to happen to you.

For the last month or so my gf has been receiving random msgs from girls I know dissing me and making me seem like a fool. Initially when I got wind of it I just laughed it off thinking how petty it was, yet still believed it was from the faces next to the msg.. Sure there was part of my mind that thought “what would motivate these girls to turn on me all of a sudden”.. but the other part of my mind answered this curiosity with “most girls must be crazy, even the nicest people can turn on you”..

(i was wrong, only some girls are crazy:) )

This was my thought at the time, not even thinking that these msgs actually didn’t come from those girls but someone who had the time and energy to set up two fake accounts.

I feel sorry for my 2 friends who had their identities stolen and used against me.. on the positive side it was revealed sooner than later, and I was only cold to them for a few weeks  hehe

One of my learnings from this interesting social networking saga is that if you have too many co-incidences a once then you need to question the situation..

My rant for the year:)

My morning Double Espresso and Mastery by Robert Greene

As my alarm went off, I sat straight up and awkwardly reached over my girlfriend to grab my iphone whilst trying not to wake her, it was 6:30am.. it was w a y to early to be waking up after last nights events filled with too much food and alcohol.. my body felt heavy and my mind.. blurry

After driving for an hour to the cafe near my office I finally arrived at my destination, as the over-friendly barista greeted me I think I cut him short mid sentence to order my usual Toby’s Estate house blend double espresso. I don’t think he minded as he deals with hundreds of customers per day and greets every one of them with the same overzealous tone in his voice, surely he’s used to half asleep people needing their caffeine fix.

I sat waiting in anticipation for my coffee to arrive and attempted to start reading my new book, Mastery by Robert Greene.. sluggishly flicking through the first few pages my mind was absorbing zero..

Luckily my double espresso arrived after a few mins and I found my focus.

You see, I prefer a double espresso over a double ristretto as it has slightly more water and lasts a few seconds longer:).. and a wise barista once told me that it contains slightly more caffeine (roughly 160mg) than a ristretto.

As I sipped the crema off the top I sucked in a small amount of the dark coloured liquid caffeine that lay below. Almost immediately I felt my mood lift to an unprecedented level and my blurred focus transformed into a laser like focus, the target of this being the book that lay in front of me.

I became immediately sucked into the first few pages, I have previously read some of Robert‘s stuff and love his writing style. He’s a great story teller and knows exactly to implant leanings and messages within these stories.

Everyone has it within them to do it all, however only a few do, why is this? That’s what I’m seeking to find out as I read on.

Note: Don’t forget to have your espresso before you start reading your next book, hopefully for your sake it’s this book:)

The future according to Google’s Larry Page

Many many great take home’s.. Loved a rule Larry has for new products: “He insists that new products pass a “toothbrush test” — they must be important enough that most people will use them at least twice a day.”

setting goals vs wandering

Growing up and then entering into my working life I was educated on the importance of setting goals.

I remember at university my lecturer told a tale of a Harvard class  where only 3% of the graduating students wrote down goals and 20 years later this 3% was worth more than the other 97% of the class. I’m still not sure wether this tale is actually true or not..

However at the time it motivated me like hell to start selling big audacious goals..

The topic of goals is very relevant to our culture as the high majority of us are status oriented and hence goal oriented.

I came across this interesting discussion between Tim Ferriss and Leo Babauta on “Whether Goals Suck”. (Thanks to my bro)

I’m still all for setting goals, but definitely look at my goal setting process differently now.

My fav quote from the video: Not all who wander are lost. “Tolken”

Working out the body, don’t forget the mind

What do we as humans spend more time working on, the mind or the body?

Well I guess that depends on who you ask… Seeing there is no one else around I’ll ask myself?

I work in the health and fitness industry and can safely say that the majority of people I come across invest most of their spare time working out their body and unfortunately in a lot of cases forget to workout the mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I looove working out, but spending 5 hours in the gym (unless you’re a professional athlete) is a little ridiculous. Hey unless you want to be like this guy..

Note: This article is a kick in the a$$ for myself more than anyone. I’m definitely guilty of overworking then overtraining and… letting the mind stuff slip by the wayside.

Recently I have found crossfit a perfect solution to reduce my gym-time and have prioritised extra time for meditation and reading.

My early morning ritual after some stretching and meditation is sinking my teeth into a book. Last week I finished “Total Recall”, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new book. It provides an extremely interesting insight into this over achiever and his amazing mind. More on Arnold below..

In working out the body the results are almost instant, which is very gratifying and encouraging to workout more and more…

If you go to the gym and work your muscles, within a few days you can start to visually notice the results, your muscles start to harden, you feel stronger etc..

Working the mind however takes patience and often you only will see the results of your hard work when you actually are under pressure to use that skill.

For example if you are studying stoic philosophy, you are most likely to notice the benefits only when you encounter a challenging or stressful situation where you can apply your newly learnt skills.

On Working out, out of the gym..

Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally most well known for being the world’s most successful bodybuilder. Bodybuilding as the word says is about building the body. However to become the world’s best involves a lot more than lifting weights over and over.

On more than one occasion Arnold admitted that he wasn’t the most muscular or in the best shape out of his competitors.

However one thing he did have was an extremely strong mind. He used mind tricks to intimidate and play mind games with his opponents, and he always came out ahead.

Arnold’s ability to develop a strong mind has allowed him to achieve basically everything he has set his sights on.

Not everyone was as fortunate as Arnold. As mentioned above, you only really know the power of your mind when it is truly tested.

Crossfit athlete Janne Mortensen learnt the importance of her mind the hard way:

Looking back, the 28-year-old doesn’t sugar coat her experience. She says she stopped doing what she loved and what she was good at because she couldn’t control her mind.

“I improved my skill set, technique and physique, but not my mind,” she explains. “So I quit.”

Mortensen moved on to competitive boxing for three years — college and career — but found that life’s pressures still stifled her progress.

“I couldn’t handle the mental aspect of anything,” she explains.

When Mortensen identified her bottleneck and confronted it, her life changed.

for full article click here

Maybe it’s time to ask yourself are you putting as much effort into your mind as you are to your body? As shown above, one compliments the other.

New Years Resolutions – Less is more

Now is the time of year when everyone talks about their new years resolutions and all of the amazing things they are going to conquer in the upcoming year. Then.. a few weeks into the new year the excitement and energy  wears off, the goals fall to the way side and your resolutions are no longer the priority. It all seems to much.. how can I possibly achieve all that? What was I thinking? … are some of the questions that go through your head..

Thinking about this repeated dilemma made me upset and excited at the same time. So I decided to do some research on this topic and came across this interesting blog post from early 2009 by Tim Ferriss that may just be the key to setting the right new years resolutions and provide you the tools to actually achieve them. Tim discusses how focusing on less, and starting with simple attainable goals will keep you motivated and build up momentum to eventually smash those big elusive goals that seem unattainable.

Here is an excerpt from Tim’s post:

The Power of Less

The only way you’ll form long-lasting habits is by applying the Power of Less: focus on one habit at a time, one month at a time, so that you’ll be able to focus all your energy on creating that one habit.

The tool that you’ll use to form each habit is an extremely powerful one: the Power of Less Challenge, a 30-day challenge that has proven very effective in forming habits for thousands of readers of my Zen Habits blog.

Here’s how it works:

1. Select one habit for the Challenge. Only one habit per month. You can choose any habit — whatever you think will have the biggest impact on your life.

[Tim: This is also supported by research done by BJ Fogg of Stanford University. Want to teach 60-year olds to use an SMS program to help them quit smoking? It won’t work. Those are two new behaviors. Choose one behavioral modification at a time.]

2. Write down your plan. You will need to specifically state what your goal will be each day, when you’ll do it, what your “trigger” will be (the event that will immediately precede the habit that’s already a part of your routine — such as exercising right after you brush your teeth), who you will report to (see below).

3. Post your goal publicly. Tell as many people as possible that you are trying to form your new habit. I suggest an online forum, but you could email it to coworkers and family and friends or otherwise get the word out to a large group.

4. Report on your progress daily. Each day, tell the same group of people whether or not you succeeded at your goal.

For Tim’s full blog post click here

I wish you all the best for the New Year and hope you were able to apply some of the learnings so your resolutions become reality..